BIEMH 2016 lived up to expectations created by industrial recovery

The expectations for the event were positive, and they have been confirmed. A total of 40,000 people visited the Machine-Tool Biennial, which ends its 29^th edition today having lived up to the expectations created by the recovery of industry.  Technology was turned into business this week at the Bilbao Exhibition Centre, at an edition of the Biennial at which visitors numbers were up 13%, new, interesting business forums were featured and orders were secured in all the sectors involved.

Xabier Basañez, General Manager of the Bilbao Exhibition Centre, expressed his satisfaction at the outcome of the event, which he described as “a great Biennial, reminiscent of earlier times not just in the number of participants but also in the atmosphere, the generally positive feeling among exhibitors and visitors and the number of sales sparked by strong growth in domestic demand. Throughout the week the Biennial has been ground zero for the world’s machine-tool industry”.  In his presentation at the press conference at noon today he also announced that the 30th BIEMH will take place on May 28-June 1, 2018 (Monday to Friday), which means it will be one day shorter than this year’s event.

Antxon López Usoz, Chair of AFM-Advanced Manufacturing Technologies, stressed the high standard of quality of the products on show and of the visitors to the event. “We have seen some very high technology machinery and equipment and a great deal of movement every day during the event. The figures clearly confirm that good business has been done at the BIEMH”, he said, referring to the surveys conducted on manufacturers and importers. The overall rating of the event was up one point on the figure for 2014 at an excellent 7.7 out of 10. ADDIT3D, the first 3-D and additive manufacturing fair, was also rated very highly by exhibitors, with an overall score of 8.

If there is one word that provides a common denominator for the assessments given by exhibitors belonging to AIMHE (Spanish Association of Machine-Tool Importers) that word is “satisfaction”, according to the Chair of the Association, Jorge García. “In the wake of the BIEMH expectations for sales are high, thanks to the high standard of visitors attending the event with the intention of investing and the power to make purchasing decisions”. “Our market is currently performing above the European average, and this was reflected at the event”, he went on to say.

The data on visitor numbers at the 29^th BIEMH reveal that 45% of trade visitors came from outside the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country, including 5% from a total of 54 foreign countries. The regions from which most domestic visitors came were Catalonia, Castilla-León, that and Madrid. The largest numbers of foreign trade visitors were from Portugal, France, Germany, Italy and China, followed by Colombia, Argentina, Mexico, Austria and India. It is worth noting that the Biennial was also visited by purchasers from Iran, Lithuania, Australia, Singapore, Syria and North Korea.

The huge range of products on show meant that visitors spent longer at the BIEMH itself and therefore also stayed longer in their hotels, so the impact of the event on the local economy also increased.

The sectors that sparked most interest were metal components, accessories for machine-tools, hydraulic and pneumatic components, cutting machine-tools, electrical and electronic equipment and tools for machine-tools and finally shaping machine-tools. A total of 1200 people took part in the various seminars and meetings organised at the BIEMH.

Institutional support for the sector was evident in the visits to the event by high-ranking personnel from the provincial councils of Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa, ICEX (Spain’s Export & Investment Body), CDTI (Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology), the Chambers of commerce of Araba and Bizkaia, ADEGI (Gipuzkoa Entrepreneurs’ Association) and SPRI (Basque Business Development Agency), among others.

All this activity generated a great deal of traffic on the various online information platforms and services of the Bilbao Exhibition Centre. The Directory of Exhibitors at the BIEMH has received around 400.000 visits since it came on line in January last, and the BIEMH website has attracted a total of 255,000 visitors. There has also been non-stop activity on social networks, with a total of 185,000 tweets and 170,074 hits on LinkedIn since January.

Leading manufacturers, importers, distributors and purchasers came together on 30 May-4 June in the biggest edition of the BIEMH Machine-Tool Biennial in recent years. The biggest industrial trade show in Spain was back in full strength this year, with 1533 exhibitors from around 30 countries, 2605 products, 1163 large-scale machines in operation and an economic impact estimated at €36 million.